The Latest Breitbart Video: A Stupid Fight to Pick?
Just before he died, Andrew Breitbart intimated that he had some really damning videos he was going to release which would be a big problem for Obama. He promised it would be part of a proper vetting of the president, which wasn't done in 2008.
We now know at least some of what he was talking about. It was a video from 1990 of Obama, then head of the Law Review, embracing and fully endorsing the controversial Harvard professor, Derrick Bell. Derrick Bell was a radical legal scholar who created the concept of "critical race theory," which put forward the notion that our legal system was inherently racist and that it was impossible for black people to get justice in the US system. Bell wrote all sorts of wacky articles critical of white America and also wrote a silly sci-fi allegory about the civil rights movement called "The Slave Traders," which basically accuses white America of profiting off of black America, abetted by the Jews – whom Bell characterizes as being two-faced connivers. Bell was also an outspoken supporter of Louis Farrakhan.
Now Obama may have been a supporter of Bell's craziness when he was at Harvard. I personally don't have any problem believing he was. He may still hold many crazy beliefs he picked up from Bell. The problem is that the video produced as "proof" of that fact is extremely thin gruel upon which to base that scandalous meal Breitbart, and now his successors, want to serve. I suspect that to the average person this accusation simply looks like a bunch of zealots straining really, really, really hard to take a fairly innocuous video and extrapolate out conclusions several degrees removed from the evidence, using the issue of race to discredit the president. It's seems pretty easy to paint this charge as a far-fetched, unsupported, and transparent attempt at dog-whistle politics which is intended to appeal to racist elements of the right and parts of the working-class democratic base.
To me this doesn't seem to have much more evidence to support it than does the birther kookiness. Frankly, I think that without a smoking gun, these guilt by association arguments that much of the right has obsessed over since 2008 are just straight losers for conservatives. All they do is generate conspiratorial arguments that are difficult to prove and which feed the meme that we're all a bunch of racists.
I know a lot of people think this video and the connection the Breitbart crew are trying to make between Obama and Bell's crazy ideas prove that Obama is in fact the racist. But it just doesn't play that way to normal people. And without hard, explicit evidence of Obama directly espousing racist rhetoric and ideas, this comes off as nothing but a feeble and ugly reach.
Are we more interested in theatrics and over-the-top accusations, or are we interested in reassuring normal people that we're also normal and not the reactionary witch-hunters we are so often caricatured as?
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Comments:
May '10
Re: The Latest Breitbart Video: A Stupid Fight to Pick?
Great Hari Seldon reference.
Percival:
I have a mental image of a holographic Breitbart, appearing Hari Seldon-like in a special chamber deep within Foundation Headquarters, issuing instructions: "OK, right about now, the MSM think they are safe..."
We shall see. · 11 minutes ago
May '10
Re: The Latest Breitbart Video: A Stupid Fight to Pick?
Underestimate Breitbart at your peril.
Re: The Latest Breitbart Video: A Stupid Fight to Pick?
I say he's our Hairy Seldon.
Mar '12
Re: The Latest Breitbart Video: A Stupid Fight to Pick?
So now Breitbart.tv has a bunch of videos of Bell saying all sorts of crazy, racist stuff. Not quite Jeremiah Wright stuff, but close. However, I don't see any of those videos making their way onto mainstream airwaves.
Hopefully, they have some even worse videos from Bell, and most importantly, something really irrefutable from Obama or his administration. Otherwise this is going nowhere.
Edited on March 8, 2012 at 11:07pmMar '11
Re: The Latest Breitbart Video: A Stupid Fight to Pick?
I'm also inclined to agree - Mr Obama's palling-around was pretty well known in 2008, and he was elected anyway. But I think Mr Breitbart's point is the dereliction of duty of the US media, rather than bringing to light anything new about Mr Obama - anyway, I will watch the videos with interest, without great expectations.
Mar '11
Re: The Latest Breitbart Video: A Stupid Fight to Pick?
I watched Hannity last night to see what this was about and also found it a bit lacking. But what I did find interesting is that Ben Shapiro repeated the phrase "Jeremiah Wright of Academia" (or something similar) a few times. I'm wondering if they have other links of Obama to the "Jeremiah Wright of Media"...
Oct '10
Re: The Latest Breitbart Video: A Stupid Fight to Pick?
Look at it this way - most Obama supporters will refuse to believe anything bad about Obama, regardless of the evidence. They will not be 'turned off' by the videos, any more than they already are. If GOP surrogates, and not the candidates themselves, can drawn clear lines from Ayers, Wright, Bell, et al, to specific Obama policies, then it may, in a small way, counteract the narrative that Obama is a pragmatist being stymied by an ideological GOP/Tea Party.
It's also possible the videos fire up disillusioned conservatives enough to get out and vote, something Romney is unlikely to do on his own.
Re: The Latest Breitbart Video: A Stupid Fight to Pick?
That doesn't strike me as an accurate characterization of the story. Judge for yourself.
Feb '12
Re: The Latest Breitbart Video: A Stupid Fight to Pick?
Spot on Percival. The first pearl was to see Buzzfeed find the MSM's lost video of the event, and edit it down to a more sanitized version -- thus exposing a cover-up (which is bound to be more interesting than the crime). The second pearl in this Breitbart necklace is the 1990 archive of Barack Obama's speaking style; self-important, confident, defiant, cadenced -- and indistinguishable from the style he deploys now. This anointed one from Harvard Law doesn't seem to have worked on his craft much since college.
Oct '10
Re: The Latest Breitbart Video: A Stupid Fight to Pick?
I'm hoping this is only a teaser, with more to come. But given how silly it is--and how it does not draw anyone into false statements--I don't think it is.
Oct '10
Re: The Latest Breitbart Video: A Stupid Fight to Pick?
Mark Groves
Spot on Percival. The first pearl was to see Buzzfeed find the MSM's lost video of the event, and edit it down to a more sanitized version -- thus exposing a cover-up (which is bound to be more interesting than the crime). The second pearl in this Breitbart necklace is the 1990 archive of Barack Obama's speaking style; self-important, confident, defiant, cadenced -- and indistinguishable from the style he deploys now. This anointed one from Harvard Law doesn't seem to have worked on his craft much since college. · 29 minutes ago
Editing a hug is not that big of a deal. Is there more to come? I mean, what sort of false statement can teasing out this one video produce from the left?
Jun '10
Re: The Latest Breitbart Video: A Stupid Fight to Pick?
Maybe we should wait and see the rest of the videos before we decide on the basis of this first one that it's nothing.
Jun '11
Re: The Latest Breitbart Video: A Stupid Fight to Pick?
Horace: So now Breitbart.tv has a bunch of videos of Bell saying all sorts of crazy, racist stuff. Not quite Jeremiah Wright stuff, but close. However, I don't see any of those videos making their way onto mainstream airwaves.
Hopefully, they have some even worse videos from Bell, and most importantly, something really irrefutable from Obama or his administration. Otherwise this is going nowhere. · 1 hour ago
Edited 1 hour ago
I don't understand why Republicans would still wait for the dinosaur media to get on board. We saw in the past 24 hours that they won't and that they didn't even learn from ACORN etc. how the Breitbart gang plays them.
This cycle, with the new rules for Super PAC advertising, everything valuable coming out of Breitbart and other places PLUS things ignored in 2008 will be used in negative ads. Every voter will know about all of this stuff this time out. The vetting of BHO is just getting started- 5 years late.
Even if the R candidate, like McCain in 2008, is against a relentless attack on Obama he won't have a say. The rules have changed. Game on.
Mar '11
Re: The Latest Breitbart Video: A Stupid Fight to Pick?
flownover: Whoever owns the megaphone speaks loudest.
You want to see an underground move taking place that is a really well-designed way to defang the Republican ownership of foreign policy.
Look around for the Joseph Kony 2012 stuff. The first piece in this game was the seemingly innocuous move to drop 100 or so troops in the area to chase Kony around. But the video is going viral and pretty soon someone will pop up and burnish the Obama foreign policy credits.
Take a look, this is a sweet setup that could hurt as much as the female Fluke thing.
What does everyone think of this ? How could you be against getting a bad guy like this ? · 6 hours ago
Edited 6 hours ago
Thanks for the warning, flownover. This deserves a thread of it's own.
Jan '11
Re: The Latest Breitbart Video: A Stupid Fight to Pick?
There are two problems. One is that you may think Bells ideas are crazy but they are now accepted meme in academia and a person is just a denier of america's institutionalized racism if they don't agree. So even if we think bell is radical trying to show Bell is the racist and then link it to Obama will cause the average person to yawn at best.
Two; If having Reverend Wright as your pastor for 20 yrs, think of it 20 yrs, along with Obama's statements that Wright was his mentor doesn't make you a radical not fit to be president saying nice things about Prof. Bell sure ain't going to. The media covered for him, accepted as true Obama's assertions that he had no idea Rev. Wright was a radical racist, America hating, antisemite, and pushed that absurd idea. What Andrew Brietbart's crew has had better be pretty special.
On a brighter thought Andrew knew all the above and was certainly more savvy than I am so maybe it is pretty special.
Edited on March 9, 2012 at 4:32amFeb '11
Re: The Latest Breitbart Video: A Stupid Fight to Pick?
Three takes from this.
This first video is deliberately vanilla, to get the Obama defenders to commit themselves. (See the Soledad O'Brien hysterics.) Then comes the next video and the ones after that. we have seen these Breitbart tactics before and they work.
The "he hasn't been vetted / you hid stuff" is legitimate and useful.
How on earth did Joel Pollak not beat Jan Schakowsky into oblivion? (I had never seen him in action before.)
Jul '10
Re: The Latest Breitbart Video: A Stupid Fight to Pick?
Conor Friedersdorf
That doesn't strike me as an accurate characterization of the story. Judge for yourself. · 5 hours ago
Yeah, Bell didn't smear Jews in that story. He did push a bunch of racist garbage that matches the rest of Horace's description.
Oh, and it was terrible. The subject was engaging enough, but the characters and plot were so silly that the aliens and their behavior were the plausible parts of the story.
At the very least Obama shouldn't embrace Bell as a matter of good taste.
Sep '10
Re: The Latest Breitbart Video: A Stupid Fight to Pick?
Ben Shapiro, also an editor at Breitbart.com, has stuff that the professor said. The emphasis here is that according to Ben, Obama taught this stuff to his students while he was at the UC Law School. Thus, he can't play the "That's not the Derrick Bell that I knew" card like he did with Jeremiah Wright.
I thought Pollack did a good job putting the media on defense with this though. Soledad was getting her information from a producer who was reading Wikipedia, and I think most viewers got that. At the very least, some people will research Critical Race Theory and realize how disturbing it is. Hopefully.
Jun '10
Re: The Latest Breitbart Video: A Stupid Fight to Pick?
The teasing out of these things was Andrew's m.o. He stated many times over the years that this was exactly how he beat the Left.Based on Bell's legal writings and ties to Obama, and Andrew's passion for the Pigford issue, I'm willing to bet that's where this is headed. Andrew made many allusions to this over the past year, in particular on Dennis Miller's show. I'll bet my next paycheck that we soon see some very damning video of Obama, in his role as community organizer, advising poor folks in Chicago how best to convince the Feds that they're displaced farmers.
Apr '11
Re: The Latest Breitbart Video: A Stupid Fight to Pick?
I agree with John France. Obama was able to survive a 20 year relationship with Wright as an unknown candidate. Wright was damaging because people were horrified by such offensive statements coming from a pastor. People expect professors to have wacky beliefs. I fear the Soledad dismissal - he's just another harmless academic inspiring discussion with unconventional ideas - will suffice for most people.
Also, Obama was still "a student" (as Ms. Fluke taught us, adult law student = 18 year old freshman). Most people forgive youthful "intellectual exploration."
In college I was an editor on an objectivist newspaper, we published offensive columns on topics like "Why Mother Theresa is Evil." Back then I also palled around with Marxists, anarchists, Chomskites, etc. I even had one radical leftist professor whom I respected enough as a sparring partner that I would have warmly introduced him at a speech (for his part, this guy - despite my extreme rightwing views - wrote a glowing recommendation that likely secured my transfer to a top tier school).
The point is, I think people accept that academic environments produce strange bedfellows.